


calm after the storm

by Tori_Scribbles



Series: a family's lives [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Needs Therapy, Canon Compliant, Domestic, Dreams and Nightmares, Families of Choice, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Injury, Introspection, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Nile Freeman Needs a Hug, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team as Family, They all need therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:02:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26670346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tori_Scribbles/pseuds/Tori_Scribbles
Summary: Andy comes to stand in front of them and Nile feels like if this was a movie now would be the time she smirks and says something badass to impress the team but she thinks if she opens her mouth to speak, she’ll throw up again as she can still feel her ribs shifting back into place under her skin. The five of them stand there for a second, nobody moving as they catch their breath. Slowly, with a surprisingly steady hand Nile holds out Andy’s axe - labrys, Copley had called it - and Andy’s hand wraps around the handle to take it and something about seeing that weapon in her hands just feels right. Andy’s other hand is reaching out for Nile, fingers curling on the back of her neck and Nile sags into the touch, letting the older immortal draw her close as they all start to move again....After they fight their way out of Merrick's lab, the night feels too calm.
Relationships: Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova & Nile Freeman, Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: a family's lives [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941214
Comments: 16
Kudos: 181





	calm after the storm

**Author's Note:**

> I found this film a week ago, have watched it at least a dozen times, have read the first comic and the second is on order. That's where we're at.
> 
> Disclaimer: I'm white and talked to my friend about Nile's hair so if I've missed anything she's said or anything is glaringly wrong please let me know!

Andy comes to stand in front of them and Nile feels like if this was a movie now would be the time she smirks and says something badass to impress the team but she thinks if she opens her mouth to speak, she’ll throw up again as she can still feel her ribs shifting back into place under her skin. The five of them stand there for a second, nobody moving as they catch their breath. Slowly, with a surprisingly steady hand Nile holds out Andy’s axe - labrys, Copley had called it - and Andy’s hand wraps around the handle to take it and something about seeing that weapon in her hands just feels right. Andy’s other hand is reaching out for Nile, fingers curling on the back of her neck and Nile sags into the touch, letting the older immortal draw her close as they all start to move again.

“You did good, kid,” she says, her voice rough but not cold. “Really good.” 

Nile thinks she smiles, at least she tries to as Andy’s hand falls away as they all reach for the car.

She stares up at the skyscraper, her hand resting on the top of the car door. Her hearts still racing like she’s falling, she still feels Merrick’s fingers clawing at her as they go down but she doesn’t remember the impact for which she’s grateful. The twentieth floor is too high up for her to see the broken window she launched herself from but still, she’s alive. She wonders how many months or years or centuries it will take for this life to stop feeling so surreal.

The sounds of sirens drawing closer pull her away from the feeling of falling and she slides into the car next to Nicky who gives her a small smile as she closes the door and Andy pulls away. Nile’s eyes drift from Nicky who has a hand resting on Joe’s shoulder over the seat as Joe’s fingers rest over his. Booker is pushed as close to the door as he could be, staring out of the window with a faraway expression that Nile had seen on many a soldier's faces over the years. Despite it all, a part of her still feels sad for him.

Nile lets out a heavy breath as the exhaustion seems to start to sink in, wincing as her ribs pull sharply and she presses an aching hand to her side. She can see that the grotesque breaks and dislocations have healed, her brain doesn’t seem to have caught up yet. Her entire body aches painfully and she wonders if it will always be like this, her body healing faster than her mind can keep up.

A soft hand on her elbow makes her startle and her eyes snap up to meet Nicky’s soft ones. She realises for the first time how close to tears she is, how harsh her sharp breaths sound. 

“You’re okay,” he murmurs softly, “the nerves can take longer to settle with larger injuries. It will pass.” 

Nile forces herself to nod, remembering what Booker had said to her in France when his entire abdomen had been torn open. A slightly hysterical part of her wants to laugh at the memory, it seems like so long ago when it was only yesterday.

“You need to eat and rest for your body to fully restore itself, our healing faster sometimes uses more energy than we have,” he explains and Nile figures it makes sense. A regular person needs more calories and rest to heal a wound but them healing faster requires even more so they can keep up.

“I’m okay,” she lies and Nicky at least has the good graces to humour her with a smile despite Andy’s disbelieving scoff from the driver's seat that Nile doesn’t even have the energy to glare at.

“Try and rest, kid. We’ll be at a safe house soon,” she says and Nile nods, resting back against the seat. Nicky’s fingers stay on her arm and rubs a soothing pattern against her skin even after she closes her eyes, silently reminding her that she’s not alone.

As soon as her mind starts to drift towards sleep she feels like she’s falling again, the bullets tearing through her chest and her eyes snap open with a strangled gasp as she hits the car, her bones shattering.

Nicky’s hand is still on her arm, soothing her silently as she gets her bearings and she’s grateful that he doesn’t draw the rest of the cars attention to her though she has no doubt they’re aware of her freaking out.

She looks out the window as the car turns down a back road that’s more like an alley and Andy pulls up at the curb. Nicky squeezes her arm slightly before he lets go and shuffles across the car to get out after Booker and Nile forces herself to move as everyone around her does, Joe pulls open the door for her from the outside and she offers him a small thanks in return.

Clearly nobody has told these men that chivalry has long since been dead, that millennial part of her brain supplies and it makes her smile despite herself.

They pull the weapons out of the trunk of the car in near silence, Joe saying something about how they’ll need to dump it first thing tomorrow which Booker volunteers to do. Nile notices the silence that follows Booker's voice, Nicky’s jawline tightening and his hand rests on Joe’s before the other man can snap at him.

Andy sighs, her hand on the trunk, the other clutching her labrys. “Forty-eight hours guys,” she says, her voice quiet but they all still to listen to her speak, “Forty-eight hours to get our shit together and recover and then we can go back to wanting to kill each other.” 

And just like that, the tension seems to dissipate. Booker still won’t meet anybody’s eyes, but Joe accepts the gun he passes him and nobody questions it when Booker takes up the back of the group as they trail up a narrow set of stone stairs to an apartment. Nile wonders what’ll happen in forty-eight hours. These people have been family for hundreds of years, how does what Booker did change that? They trusted him to help get them out of that lab, they watched his back as he watched theirs but still it was clear that they were rightfully hurt and angry at what he did.

Joe picked the lock on the apartment door with ease, muttering under his breath about his keys still being in the church in France. Nile wasn’t sure what she expected their safe house to be like, perhaps another run-down abandoned building but as they stepped inside and lights were flicked on she was surprised to see that this just looked like a regular apartment. A kitchen, couches and a media centre. There were no separate bedrooms, just a decent sized open plan space with three beds against the wall behind one of the couches.

“Make yourself at home,” Joe says to her as they all start to kick off their boots so as not to traipse blood through. Nile set her handgun on top of the side table and crouches down to unlace her boots, there was clearly no way of saving them. The bullet she’d put through one of them had shredded the sole and they were both pretty tarnished with a mixture of her’s and their assailant’s blood. “There’s a bathroom through there, just one I’m afraid but the hot water shouldn’t run out.” 

Nile nods slightly as she moves further into the room, her fingers brushing over the blanket that was folded across the back of the couch. It seemed so normal. Framed sketches on the mantelpiece, a variety of books on the shelves and even an old guitar propped up against the wall. Everything was covered in a light coat of dust but it looked like a proper home.

“You got the worst death, you get the first shower,” Andy says, patting her on the shoulder on the way to wash her hands at the kitchen sink, the water turning a dirty colour as she rinsed away the layers of blood. “That’s the rules.” 

Nile casts a doubtful look at the back of Nicky’s head that was still coated in blood and his own brain matter but was too tired to argue as Booker handed her a pair of sweats and a hoodie that he’d pulled out of a drawer. “The towels in the bathroom are fresh, there should be a toothbrush in the cabinet,” he says quietly.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, stepping inside the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She leans back against the door for a moment, her body aching with exhaustion and she wanted nothing more than to curl up under a heavy blanket and just sleep but her body had started to itch as the blood dried and she forces herself to move.

Setting the clean clothes on the counter, she looks up at herself in the mirror for the first time. She looks the same. Bloodied holes in her shirt, her jacket torn and blood smeared across her face, but the same. She doesn’t feel the same though, the things she’s seen and the things she’s done in the last two days make that girl in Afghanistan with Dizzy and Jay feels like years ago.

She goes through the motions of washing her hands careful to not get grime across the clean surfaces as she inspects the damage to her braids. They’ll need to be taken out and washed properly but she’d rather not risk the cheap shampoo that looks like it’s been sat on that shelf for several years. She’ll get the worst of it off of her now and hope for the best later.

Stepping under the warm shower, the jet sooths the pain that lingered through her nerves and as she washes herself down with the sweet scented body wash trying not to stare at the murky water swirling down the drain. Her fingers brush over her chest, the skin there had knitted together smoothly where bullets had torn through her only an hour ago.

She forces herself through the motions of washing herself and when she was satisfied she’d gotten the worst of it off of her scalp she turns the water off and steps out. She’s careful as she brushes her teeth with the fresh toothbrush she finds, setting everything back where she’d found it, feeling like a guest in this house despite them telling her to make herself at home. She dresses in the two big clothes that she guesses are Andy’s and has to roll the waistband of the pants over several times to stop herself from tripping over the ends. 

When she steps out of the bathroom, feeling slightly better from being clean, her lips twitch at the domesticity that surrounds her. Joe and Nicky are in the kitchen, the smell of hot foods and spices filling the apartment while Booker is stripping down and changing the sheets on the beds and Andy is sprawled out across one of the couches, picking her way through a candy bar.

“Feeling less dead?” she asks with a raised eyebrow when she spots Nile who nods in reply, pushing forward to sit cross-legged in the armchair. “Nicky, shower! I don’t want your brain matter in my food.” 

Nicky calls out to her in what Nile thinks is Italian and whatever he says makes Andy laugh with a slight roll of her eyes but Nicky and Joe both finish up what they’re doing and disappear into the bathroom together. 

“Here.” 

Nile looks up just in time to catch the TV remote that Andy tosses at her and she takes the hint to turn it on, flicking to a local news station that’s showing breaking news of a suspected terrorist attack at the Merrick building. As she watches the footage play she starts to unpick one of the ends of her braids with her nails, tugging the towel that was around her shoulders to lay over her lap so she doesn’t make a mess.

“I spoke to Copley, he’s covered our tracks from the lab. All the footage and names have been erased, it’s like we were never there,” Andy says, watching the camera zoom in on the smashed car.

“Except the bodies we left behind,” Nile says, the lives she took still weigh heavily on her but she reminds herself of the blood that was smeared across Joe and Nicky as they were strapped to the tables, the needles and torture they’d been put through, that they wanted to put all of them through. “What about the samples they took. We never destroyed them.” 

Andy sighs looking conflicted for a moment. “They can’t be traced back to us, they’re just unidentifiable samples. If someone can do some good with them then…” she trails off. “The damage has already been done, if we destroyed them then what comes from this.” 

The words sound more like something Nicky or Joe would say and Nile wonders if they had this conversation while she was in the shower and Andy is just repeating what they said. In some way they must be okay with the samples still being out there. if anybody could walk into wherever they’re being held and destroy them it's this team. But they’re not going to.

“I’m going to go to the store and get some supplies,” Booker says, done with the beds. “Do you want anything?” 

“Some more of that chocolate,” Andy requests, gesturing to the wrappers on the floor next to her and Booker nods, looking to Nile. 

“Some hair stuff so I can get the rest of this blood out,” Nile asks, holding her fingers away from the part of her hair that was free to show the blood that had clung to the strands. She gives him some examples of products, a little uncertain in trusting a white man from a time before good Black hair care but she was going to take what she could get.

Nile watches as he grabs some cash out of one of the kitchen drawers and his Glock off of the dining table before he heads out and looks back to Andy.

“What’s going to happen with him?” she asks.

Andy’s fingers brush over the bandages on her side as a look of pain crosses her face that Nile doesn’t think is from the wound. “Exile,” she says, “not forever just… until we can process. This is the closest to punishment we have. It’ll give you guys time to be angry and him time to figure out what he wants… to realise that he’s not as alone as he thinks he is.” 

Nile’s fingers in her hair still as she notes the way Andy doesn’t mention herself. “For how long?” 

Andy smiled at her sadly. “We’ll decide together, but a while.” 

When Andy says a while Nile gets the impression she isn’t talking about just a few years and with her new mortal status, it doesn’t seem fair. None of it does. Booker is ill. In today’s society, it would be called depression or a type of PTSD maybe, she’s uncertain how isolating him will help but as Nicky and Joe come out of the bathroom smiles on their faces she doesn’t think now is the time to mention it.

“When I spoke to Copley, he looked into your military file,” Andy says and Nile’s head snaps up, hands falling away from her hair. “He’s holding off the paperwork that’s reporting you AWOL, your family won’t know until you decide.” 

“Decide what?” Nile asks, her voice cracking at the thought. “You all said- you all said I can’t-” 

Andy’s face softens and she looks towards the door, no doubt thinking of Booker. “It’s easier making a clean break but there are options. You could stay in contact with them for a few more years until you're too old to look like you’re in your twenties, trust that Copley is covering our tracks so you can’t be traced back to them, see them occasionally. Or you could try and tell them but… you know Booker’s story and it’s not uncommon for us. As much as they love you, they could be jealous and bitter. That can hurt more than anything else.” 

Nile nods, tears burning her eyes as she pictures her mom unable to come to terms with this new life, her brother realising what she is and being angry that she can’t share this gift. Or worse she imagines Copley unable to cover her identity and someone like Merrick finding her family and using them to get to her. That thought scares her more than any of the others, the thought of endangering her families lives as she remains untouchable. It makes her feel physically sick and she brushes the tears away.

Andy pushes herself up from the couch with only a slight groan of pain, she looks a little unsteady for a moment but it passes and she heads towards the bathroom, pausing for a moment next to Nile she holds something out and it takes her a second to realise that it’s her phone. She wipes her fingers on the towel and takes it, staring down at the device uncertainly.

“Whatever you choose,” Andy says quietly, her hand cupping the side of Nile’s face gently, “we all have your back. No questions asked.” 

Nile nods, unable to swallow the lump in her throat to reply, Andy brushes her tears away before continuing past her.

Nile hears her call something out to Joe and Nicky but doesn’t pay attention to their banter as she looks down at the picture of her mom and brother. She knew that what Andy said was the truth, that they’d all support her choice whatever it was but she doesn’t know how to make a choice like this. She slides the phone into her hoodie pocket and leaves it there. She has time to decide.

Joe and Nicky go back to checking on the food and Nile returns to methodically unbraiding her hair, her eyes resting on the TV without really taking in the information it was showing. By the time Booker comes back Nile is working her way through her last braid and he sets a bag of what looks like bottles on the floor next to her.

“I apologise if they’re the wrong kind,” he says quietly and she gives him a small smile.

“I’m sure they’re fine, thank you,” she replies. He gives a slight nod and looks up as Andy comes out of the bathroom, he passes her a second bag of what she presumes is medical supplies. Andy looks down into it and frowns. “I can give you a hand if you want, we got taught basic medical training.” 

Andy looks up at her and nods so Nile pushes herself up out of her seat, tossing the wrecked bits of her extensions into the garbage. She pulled one of the scrunchies Booker had bought out of the bag and couldn’t help imagine him standing in a hair care aisle looking totally lost between products. Nile steps back into the bathroom to look in the mirror as she pulls up her hair on the top of her head. It still needed washing and conditioning properly but that wasn’t going to get done tonight, maybe she’d even find a salon to go and get something a little more practical. She washes her hands again, getting the gunk from her hair out from under her nails before joining Andy at the table to assess the products in front of them.

She pulls a pair of gloves on and as efficiently as she could, she cleans and redresses the gunshot wound on her side, pulling butterfly stitches over it to replace the stitches Andy had torn out while fighting.

“You could do with actual stitches but I’m guessing you guys don’t have a full first aid kit around here,” she comments.

“We used to,” Nicky says, “not here though.” 

Andy laughs slightly. “Nicky used to be the best at sutures.” 

Nile shoots him a confused look as she cuts a length of tape. 

“We heal, but sometimes the people we find can’t,” he says, “and I’ve been in a few war zones.” 

“Time to brush up on those skills,” Andy says casually but the others don’t seem to find the humour in it.

It was easy enough to patch up for Nile but she can’t help but notice the anxious glances that the others cast their way. Booker has that permanent look of guilt set on his face while Nicky looks more resigned and Joe looks as though he was trying to hide his anxiety. Every time Andy got so much as a papercut it would remind them all that her time with them was limited.

“You’re all good,” Nile says as she pulls Andy’s shirt back down over the gauze. Andy opens her eyes and smiles. 

“Thanks, kid.” 

Nile rolls her eyes as she scoops up the packages to toss in the trash. “I’m not a kid,” she says, getting several laughs in return.

“When you’re as old as we are, anyone younger than a century is a babe,” Booker said with a fond smile and Nile scoffs, this was clearly something she wasn’t going to shake anytime soon.

She looks between them, to Andy it seems that the time of a millennium is nothing, Joe and Nicky were so entranced in each other that they talked about centuries like they were single years while Booker… seems so old to Nile’s twenty-six years but young to the others, the centuries weigh him down through his grief. Every time she saw the depression seep into his expression her heart ached for her own family. She never wanted to forget her mother's face, she never wanted to know the pain of outliving her brother, his kids and even his grandchildren. The weight of her phone in her pocket feels heavier every time she thinks of them. It would be so easy to just pick up the phone and hear the sound of her mom’s voice.

“Kiddo, will you get the plates out of that cupboard please,” Joe says, gesturing to the cupboard at Nile’s elbow. She pulls herself back into the present, smiling at his patient look as she pulls out five plates and sets them around the table.

As they all sit down, Nicky sets dishes in the middle and tells them to help themselves. Nile honestly didn’t know what went into it but considering it all came out of tins and the freezer it tasted amazing especially after the day they’d had. But they sat together and ate, quiet jibes passing between Nicky, Joe and Andy in what seemed like several languages that Nile couldn’t understand but it felt absurdly casual after the couple of days they’d all had. Once dinner is finished, Nile insists on washing up as Joe joins her to dry and put away.

“How’re you doing?” he asks her as she passes him a plate.

“I’m good,” she replies, trying to keep her voice casual, “my lungs have finally realised my ribs aren’t still impaling them.” 

Joe chuckles. “You get used to it… In a century or two.” 

Nile laughs. “Yeah, I think it’s gonna take a while,” she says, taking extra care to wipe a sauce stain off of the plate.

“We’ve all been through it,” Joe says gently, “we struggle to remember that long ago but… but we all remember the fear we felt when we discovered this life. The uncertainty. We all had different relationships with our families but we all found each other.” 

The part of Nile that is still burning with anger at this whole situation for tearing her away from her life wants to ask if Booker ever got that memo but the more rational part of her brain cuts her off first. She doesn’t know who she is now or what's going to happen in this new life next but she refuses to start it by being cruel.

“How are you?” she asks instead and Joe looks taken aback at her change of subject. “You were taken and… tested on. I don’t think that’s a thing you get used to with time.” 

Joe leans back against the worktop, looking down at the towel in his hands. “No,” he says, his voice softer than before. He smiles humorlessly and his eyes rise up and seek out Nicky across the room. “No it’s not. We get used to feeling pain, it still hurts but… it’s duller almost. Capture brings such uncertainty for us though, the torture won’t end if we die. Nobody wants to go through what we went through alone but I think it would’ve been easier to bare alone.” 

Nile looks from his tear stained cheeks to follow his gaze to Nicky and her heart aches. As awful as an eternal life alone seems, she can’t imagine having to watch the person she loves more than anything be in pain and die over and over again for centuries, that seems like worse torture than any experiment. Andy laughs at something Nicky says and Nile’s eyes are drawn to her, the look of pure hopelessness in her eyes at the mention of Quynh who has been drowning again and again and again at the bottom of the ocean for the past five hundred years. Then there’s Booker who watched his wife and children grow older and die hating him only to be plagued with the feeling of a stranger drowning every night for centuries with no end to any of it in sight.

The thought takes Nile’s breath away and she has to turn back to press her hands against the counter to stop her knees buckling. These people, their lives were her future for potentially thousands of years. How long even was a thousand years?

A warm hand presses against her back silently and she bites down on her lip to stop herself sobbing, her eyes clenched tightly shut. She forces herself to take a deep breath when she tastes blood. Joe is murmuring to her in soft arabic, she doesn’t understand it all but his voice is warm and comforting.

“This sucks,” she manages, her voice quiet and cracked.

Joe hums in agreement as his hands rub soothing circles against her back. “Sometimes it does,” he says. “These days you’ve known us, this isn’t what our lives are usually like. The last year we’ve travelled, sometimes alone, sometimes together. We saw the world, we did odd jobs and met people. It sucks sometimes, not always though.” 

Nile nods, glancing back at him. “I’m not always like this, sorry.” 

Joe smiles, his glassy eyes kind. “In two days, your life ended and you got left with something nobody could prepare for and when you had the chance to run away, you came back and saved us.” He brushes a tear from her cheek with his knuckle. “There’s no right way to deal with this. We’ve got shoulders to cry on and alcohol to drink. Whatever you need.” 

She takes a shuddering breath and nods again as she looks up at him. “I may take you up on both of those things,” she manages, “I can’t imagine what it’s all been like for you but if there’s anything I can do to help or make it easier, please tell me.” 

“Just be yourself,” he tells her, “that’ll help more than anything.” 

“Alright, I’m going to bed, because apparently I need to sleep more,” Andy calls out, “if you wake me up I will not be responsible for my actions.” 

Joe laughs. “Whatever you say, Boss.” He turns back to Nile. “You probably want to get some sleep too.” 

Nile starts to shrug but then nods, she doesn’t hurt or ache but she feels heavy, like her body is trying to sink itself down to rest and she can’t deny that sleep sounds good right about now.

“Go,” he encourages, “I’ll finish up here.” 

She wants to be polite and insist on helping but as Nicky steps over and Joe’s expression softens she takes the hint.

“Thank you,” she says, for more than just helping her clean up. “Goodnight.” 

“Goodnight.” 

“Buona notte,” Nicky says. “Oh, Nile.” She looks back at him. “There’s a scarf on one of the beds, if you wanted to wrap your hair.” 

Nile’s heart stuttered in surprise, it was a small gesture but something that most strangers wouldn’t even think about let alone amend. Her smile widens. “Grazie.” 

Nicky returns her smile with a grin of his own. “Dormi bene, Sorella.” 

Nile takes the deep purple scarf that’s hanging over the end of the closest bed, it looks old but the silk is soft between her fingers and seems expensive.

Andy moves around her, pulling her shirt off over her head and Nile makes a startled noise, trying to avert her eyes.

Booker brushes past her with a slight laugh. “You get used to it, kid,” he says, “take that bed. If it was Andy’s safehouse you wouldn’t get a bed let alone privacy.” 

“I was born before the days of beds,” Andy says as she pulls a new shirt over her head with only a slight wince. “The modern age is too obsessed with comfort.” 

“I don’t mind,” Nile says, dropping down to sit on the edge of the bed in the middle that Booker had gestured to. “I got used to no privacy in the corps. Shared sleeping quarters, shared showers. And this bed is comfier than the desert.” 

“You can say that again,” Andy agrees as she steps past Nile to sit on the bed in front of her, tucking a knife under the pillow, a Glock already on the nightstand. Booker pull drops down on the mattress behind her, his hand pressed against his forehead as he closes his eyes. Andy stills as he settles, her eyes staring unseeing at the floor between her and Nile, lost in a thought that looked sad.

“Are you okay?” Nile asks and then feels stupid. Of course she’s not okay. She was betrayed, shot, her family tortured and hurt all in a day and now she’s slowly dying.

Andy looks up to meet her eyes and her lips rise into an open expression. “Some weeks just suck, kid and there’s nothing even we can do about it.” 

Behind her Nile can see Booker open his eyes, his gaze fixed on the ceiling and she doesn’t need to ask to know he’s thinking that he could have done something about this week, he _had_ done something about it and that was the issue.

Andy sighs. “Stop thinking, Book,” she says, apparently able to read the heaviness in the air between them. “I’m too tired to be dealing with this tonight.” 

Booker’s arm falls to the mattress next to him and he uses it to push himself onto his side to face the wall. When Nile looks back to Andy, the older woman is brushing it off, looking back to her.

“How’re you doing?” she asks.

Nile shrugs, reaching up to lay the scarf over head, folding and twisting it as she considers her answer. She’s been asked that question a lot since she died - the first time - and she’d be lying if she said it wasn’t getting old by now. “Better than I was when you pulled me out of the desert,” she says honestly, “what’s gonna happen now?” 

Andy lays down, tugging the quilt over her and Booker. “I figure out how long a bullet wound takes to heal and we go from there.”

Nile follows Andy’s lead and lays down, tugging the comforter over her shoulders, after the day she’d had even that small gesture should’ve hurt but she felt better than she had in her entire life. No pulled muscles, no strains, no trace of a stress headache. 

She closes her eyes and thinks of where her mom and her brother are right now. Thousands of miles away they were probably at home, it must be around sixteen hundred hours there, her mom would be finishing up at work about to go home and her baby brother, in a lecture somewhere or maybe even a practical session, he liked those the best. But to them today was just another day, thinking she was with her squad in Afghanistan, waiting for her call.

Her heart still aches as she thinks about them but slowly sleep wins over her grief and she slips into the warm slumber she’d been craving for hours.

_A memory pulls Nile deeper, her father’s face smiling at her as he coaxes her further into the water. It was Lake Michigan and Nile was seven. In one of the few weeks that her dad had leave and the sun was shining, he’d taken them all out to the lake, her mom was sitting back on a blanket a baby cradled against her chest watching Nile and her dad splash in the shallows._

_“Come on,” he said, “you know I’ve got you, baby. Just a little bit further. Keep kicking.”_

_Nile let herself be tugged deeper into the lake, lifting her feet off the floor to keep kicking trying to reach out towards her dad who kept moving back, his hands barely holding hers anymore as she paddled after him. She giggled as his hands pulled away and she swam towards him but as she laughed, she pulled in a mouthful of water and slipped under as she choked._

_The water that surrounded her was no longer the warm tides of Lake Michigan but cold and sharp with salt. She couldn’t hear her father’s laughter anymore, just dull banging as the woman tried to claw her way out of her prison. Her whole body hurt, not just the physical feeling of her lungs burning but every bone in her body screamed in protest to her movements however the anger and desperation that boiled inside of her hurt more than anything else. It made her want to keep fighting harder than anything but made the relief of death so much sweeter when it came._

A sharp gasp tears through Nile’s throat as she shoots upright and scrambles to get out from under the blankets, feeling like they’re pulling her down again.

Blankets are against her skin, not metal.

Air is in her lungs, not water.

She’s alive, when somewhere, Quynh just died.

Nile looks across at Andy, in the darkness, she could see the steady rise and fall of her breath as she slept. On the other side of her, Booker’s head laid on her arm, his body curling towards her. She looks towards the other bed to make sure she hasn’t disturbed Joe and Nicky but their bed was empty, sheets untouched.

She pushes herself out of bed, toes curling as her feet touch down on the cold wooden floor. She moves quietly towards the kitchen, pulling a bottle of water out of the packet. She took a mouthful and forces herself not to choke against it. She wasn’t drowning.

“Nile? Are you okay?” Nicky’s voice is barely audible but carries across to her from the couch. He’s twisted to look over the back at her, a worried frown creasing his face.

“Sorry,” she says automatically. “I’m fine.” 

Nicky nods. “Come,” he says softly, “join us.” 

Nile pads across the room to the couch and see’s Joe for the first time, sprawled out with his head on Nicky’s lap fast asleep. She slides into the space on Nicky’s other side when he beckons her closer, fiddling with the bottle cap as she watches Nicky’s fingers rub through Joe’s curls.

“Would you like to talk about it?” he asks lowly.

Nile presses her thumb against the ridged edge of the bottle cap, pushes her finger back and forth against it.

“Will I always dream of her if I don’t meet her or will they… stop after a while?” she asks.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees his fingers still as he realises who Nile is talking about, after a second they resume.

“I don’t know,” he says regretfully. “We mostly dream about another when a death happens on either end of the connection. She dies more often than most. Booker-” he falters at his name but goes on. “He doesn’t get them as often as he did at first. I hope they fade quickly.” 

Nile thinks of the flask that she’s seen cradled in Booker’s hands more often than not and the hollow look in his eyes when he thinks nobody is looking. She wonders at what point the dreams of drowning started to actually drown him though she’s uncertain that she actually wants to know the answer.

Her thumb presses against the edge of the bottle cap and she barely feels the sting of it until Nicky takes her hand in his and moves it away from the plastic. 

“What time is it?” she asks, changing the subject as she looks towards the window, the curtains are drawn but she can still see the orange glow of the streetlights illuminated through the top. 

“A little after four,” Nicky says, “do you think you could get more sleep?”

Nile shrugs. “How comes you’re not sleeping?” she asks.

“I don’t sleep well after rough missions,” he says, his eyes drifting back down to Joe, a soft smile gracing his lips. “He tries to stay up with me, he’s always asleep within five minutes.” 

Nile can’t help but smile at the thought of Joe trying to stay awake just to keep Nicky company. 

“Are you both okay?” she asks, thinking of how she never got an answer out of Joe earlier. “I can’t imagine what you guys went through in there.” 

Nicky nods. “We will be,” he says, meeting her eyes, “in time. Thank you, for coming back for us. Andy told us you gave up a chance to see your family again.” 

Nile tries to smile but can’t quite manage it. “It was the right thing to do,” she says, “besides, you guys sent Andy to come and save me.” 

Nicky tugs her closer so she leans against his side, she lets her head rest against his shoulder. “We’d do it again,” he swears and though she knows little to nothing about this man, these people, she knows in her heart that what he’s saying is the truth because she’s their family now. 

And they are hers.

**Author's Note:**

> The Italian comes straight from google translate, please let me know if it's wrong!  
> Buona notte - Goodnight  
> Grazie - Thank you  
> Dormi bene, Sorella - Sleep well, sister
> 
> You can find me on tumblr [here.](purplepingupenguins.tumblr.com)
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated ♥


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